Oh my gosh, I remember that scene... but not sure what's the correct quote. I'm on the case... will call one of my Lord of the Ring friends. Stay tuned!

Thanks, Lora. I plan to do a blog post about word usage, and that use of resilient is wrong, wrong, wrong. I could go ahead without it, but there's bound to be one of those LOTR fans out there who's practically memorized every line of dialog (and the books).

I'm not sure if this is authoritative, but here is a British blogger complaining about the misuse of the word resilient:

That terrific film of The Lord of the Rings has Elrond remarking that Frodo has proved "remarkably resilient to" the evil of the Ring.

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It's all daft. "Resilient" comes from a Latin root that means "leaping back". I would have written "resilient in the face of"; even "resilient from" would make better sense than "leaping back to an economic slowdown". I suppose "resilient" has been confused with "resistant".

Robin, it's just one more indication of a general decline in literacy. I have a feeling the use of resilient has something to do with words sounding somewhat alike. Just go ahead and use it instead of taking the trouble to find out if it means what you thnk it means.

Maybe I'll reach the point where boo boos like that don't jump out and get under my skin, but it hasn't happened yet.